Ust Natha - City of Curtains

[Bone2pick]

There is a world beneath the world humans know—a vast, lawless land under The Realms That See The Sun. It is a perilous wilderland of dark caverns, crevices, and labyrinthine passages: The Realms Below, the vast and mysterious Underdark. No surface adventurer has seen all its depths and corners. Beasts that no surface-dweller yet knows of lurk in its lightless depths—and surviving explorers say the known dangers are bad enough!


To the unwary (or merely desperate) traveler in the Underdark, a city may seem a refuge from creeping doom in the darkness. It holds, after all, bustling life with food, tools, and perhaps aid.


Perhaps not. Even the good beings of the depths, dwarves, gnomes, thaalud, and svirfneblin, tend to be (rightfully) suspicious of intruders. Other city-dwellers include the most evil and dangerous races of the Realms: kuo-toa, duergar, illithids, cloakers, and most far-reaching of all, drow, the dark elves. 





"If you can't see a trap coming I recommend you look twice." ~ Drow Proverb


Tens of thousands of years ago, the elves were divided, with those of benevolent disposition battling those that were selfish and cruel.  The war among elvenkind ended when the good elves banished their malevolent kin to the subterranean depths. Here, in the lightless caverns and endless warrens of twisting passages, the dark elves—the drow—found refuge.  They also found leadership in the only elven diety who had not forsaken them.  At her commend, the dark elves built an empire in the underworld.


Children of Lolth. The drow worship Lolth, a diety who resides in the abyss.  Known as the Spider Queen or the Demon Queen of Spiders, she is the figure around which the dark elves have built their subterranean civilization.  Whatever she demands, the drow do.


Creatures of Darkness. The drow have lived underground for so long that they have evolved to their surroundings and can see in the dark.  However, they can no longer stand sunlight.  When slaves are in short supply in the Underdark, the drow send raiding parties to the surface to capture humanoids under cover of darkness, bringing them back to their cities to be tortured into submission.  Beyond those occasional excursions, the drow are content to remain in their subterranean realm, where they feel secure and in control.


Underdark Cities.  The dark elves build fantastic cities in enormous caverns where food and water are abundant.  Their ability to sculpt stone rivals that of the greatest dwarf artisans, yet their structures retain a decidedly eleven aesthetic.  Though appearing delicate, drow settlements are structurally sound and remarkably resilient.  The drow like to hollow enormous stalagmites and stalactites, creating populated spires that rise from the floors and ceilings. 






The above paragraphs have all been taken straight from D&D texts.  There was no need for me to reinvent the wheel in terms of drow lore—they're well established.  I plan on developing a particular drow city, Ust Natha, further here in this thread, as well as outline my plans for a future drow roleplay.  

 

[Bone2pick]

Ust Natha 


Alias: City of Curtains


Size: Metropolis (28,000 drow)





Over 28,000 drow call Ust Natha home. This is slightly fewer than most drow cities; most hold 35,000 or more. The bitter, violent rivalries of the city's noble Houses (perpetuated and fostered by the Spider Queen and those who worship her) keeps the population from growing much, but also ensures that the drow of Ust Natha are among the hardiest and most cunning survivors, and deadliest fighters, of the Underdark. Most surface realms of forty times the city's population would be hard put to assemble twenty warriors who could hold their own for long against twenty Ust Nathan fighters. 


The worship of Lolth dominates life inside the city.  There seems no higher purpose in the lives of most citizens than to rise in the service of the Spider Queen until she claims each life, in turn. Most drow develop a hobby or interest to call their own (from mastery of a particular weapon to collecting certain gems or fine boots), but these can be weaknesses if a rival can find a way to exploit them.


With Lolth-worship comes female dominance. Males of the city tend to excel in the few things they are allowed to excel in: fighting, wizardry, and dirty jobs related to trade, building, and food.


Males who enjoy home or the worship of Lolth turn their efforts to mastering the arts of sculpture and design (and, if magically talented, glyphs and House defensive traps), and to excelling at songs in praise of the Spider Queen.


Restless or independent males tend to gravitate to study in Ssorzlan (which can involve being cloistered away from most House politics for their entire lives), or towards life as a merchant traveling through the perilous Underdark to and from other cities and trademoots, sometimes on the surface.


Except for individuals of great beauty, or who show great aptitude in the arts of war, sorcery, or artisanship in a valued field, the preceding notes on choices in life apply almost exclusively to drow nobles: commoners do as they are told, forming the bulk of the drudge labor and common soldiering tasks as servants of the noble Houses.


No drow citizen of Ust Natha is ever officially the slave of another, but a great many drow are slaves in all but name. (Drow battle captives won from outside the city can be held openly as slaves.)


The commoners only avenues to freedom lie in escape from the city, or in developing skill and reputation (and thereby, work) as hunters, mercenary warriors, or traveling merchants. As all of these routes to a better life lead into the dangerous